


The Lead Balloon Pilot Squad

by CaptainDemetrios



Series: Lead Balloon Squad (Clone Trooper Ocs) [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Lead Balloon Squad, OC Clone Squad - Freeform, Pilot Clones, the feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-02
Updated: 2016-12-02
Packaged: 2018-09-03 16:44:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8721256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainDemetrios/pseuds/CaptainDemetrios
Summary: The first and second missions of a pilot squadran that calls themselves the Lead Balloons





	

It wasn’t supposed to go like this.

  
“Mayday mayday! I’m hit!” The voice came over the comm- barely masked panic. An outsider wouldn’t even be able to tell, but any clone certainly could.

  
“Can you recover for a landing?” Commander Brick scanned the sky, spotted the flaming plane and at once knew his answer.

  
“Negative, I need to eject!”

  
“Go! Someone-” Brick started but Knight interupted

  
“I’ll cover pick up!” Knight’s ship swept in front of him and dived to be level with their brother’s burning plane. Brick saw the clone eject.

  
He didn’t see the parachute deploy.

  
“Deploy, Slug!” Brick barked.

  
“I can’t--” The comm went dead and Brick watched with horror as Slug, still strapped to his seat, hit the water and didn’t come back up.

  
“Shit,” Brick muttered over the comm, throat feeling dry. He watched Knight open his ship and jump into the water. “Knight! What are you doing? Get out of there!” He started to move down to pick up Knight, but his path was interupted by enemy fire. He had to persue them instead.

  
Clones don’t believe in gods. But if Brick did, he would be praying he didn’t lose two brothers today.

  
He delayed as long as he could, and finally as Brick turned away to shoot down the enemy ship, he saw Knight pop back out of the water.

  
Alone.

  
\---------------------

  
“This is ridiculous” Cane was pacing. Cane paced more than Brick did, despite not even being a captain. Ryder always teased about it, but he wasn’t teasing today.

  
“It makes sense, Cane. We need someone to--”

  
“We don’t need someone to replace Slug” Knight snapped. He leaned against the wall, arms crossed. He’d been somber since getting back from the last mission, and furious when learning another clone was being assigned to their squad. “Someone new is just going to slow us down.”

  
“I agree” Cane said “We’ll have to train them in our shorthand, our tactics, it’ll be ages before he’s actually ready for a mission, and we wont have that kind of time! We’ll be going in with a shiny who isn’t ready and it’s going to be a danger to all of us.”

  
“Enough.” Brick said. “We don’t have a choice. We’re getting someone. And Knight, you know they arent going to keep us going as a squad of five when we were trained as a squad of six. You knew they were going to send someone after Slug.”

  
“We dont need it. We can function fine in a group of five, ground troops do it all the time”

  
“We aren’t ground troops!”

  
The arguing came to a sudden stop when another clone walked in, followed by their batallion admiral. The squad snapped to attention.  
The clone looked at them, silent still. Something somber about his eyes.

  
Knight realized immediatly that this was no shiny.

  
“CT-3001 will be joining your squad” The admiral said. “He’s battle trained, the only survivor of his squad.”

  
Knight glanced at Cane, who didn’t meet his eye.

  
“I have your new orders here as well.” The admiral handed the datafile to Brick and left.

  
CT-3001 still said nothing. They stepped closer and looked him over.

  
“What’s your name, brother?” Brick asked. The clone didn’t answer. “I asked you a question, trooper!” Brick snapped, annoyed at the boy’s insolence.

  
But he didn’t look like he was being intentionally difficult or even testing the chain of command. He just... Didn’t talk.

  
“Are you defective?” Knight asked cruely. That made the clone flinch, and Brick glared back at Knight.

  
“Don’t call him that. Fine, if you don’t have a name, or don’t want to tell us we’ll give you one. Alright?”

  
The clone nodded. Brick was stumped then. He was not the most creative clone around.

  
“Ah..”

  
“We could call him Mute” Ryder said dryly.

  
“We’re not calling him that.” Cane said.

  
“Well do you have any better ideas?” Ryder shot back

  
“Krayt.” Drake suggested, scratching the tattooed scales on his neck.

  
“Absolutely not.” Knight said, rolling his eyes.

  
“Well, what do you think then?”

  
Knight stepped forward and looked the clone over. He felt like he knew the man in an instant- the pain he must feel constantly for his lost brothers, the fear of getting close to anyone else and losing them too. The desire to do better, be better, so their brothers never die again.

  
His eyes fell to the ID number that was painted onto the armor. Most clones didn’t do that. This one seemed fine being reduced back to a number. Maybe it was how he coped with the loss of his squad.

  
“Eddi.” Knight said finally.

  
“What?’

  
“Well his numbers. 3001. Looks like Eddi.” Knight shrugged. The clone smiled and nodded.

  
Brick shrugged. “Eddi it is then.” Attention drifted away from Eddi then as they reviewed their orders for the next mission.

  
\--------------------------

  
It was another planet of mostly ocean. Knight’s stomach twisted as his ship took off from the starcruiser. He had always been uneasy flying over so much water, but after Slug’s death…. Clones weren’t supposed to be afraid. And he wasn’t, he wasn’t afraid- just more wary of oceans now.

  
“Gray One, squad check in” Brick’s voice came over the comm.

  
“Gray Two, check” Drake answered.

  
“Gray Three check” Ryder said next

  
“Gray Four check” Knight said, perhaps a little faster than strictly necessary.

  
“Gray Five check” Cane’s gruff and firm voice came last.

  
There was a beat and then--

  
“Gray Six, check”

  
He talks. Eddi spoke. Knight was about to demand what his deal was, but as soon as the anger came to his mind, the answer did too.

  
Eddi wouldn’t speak anymore- but he had to speak in the ships. Audio was the only way they had to communicate with each other, and if Eddi didn’t speak he would be putting everyone in danger. And he wouldn’t want to lose anothe squad.

  
“Move out” Brick commanded.

  
As fast as things could happen in a ground battle, they happened even faster in the air. It was a tough battle, the Seperatist pilots were skiled and dangerous, and Cane had been barking out tactical corrections almost non-stop.

  
Eddi just joined, but he moved easily with the rest of the squad. He went where Cane instructed and when left to his own devices, he provided cover while Knight rushed nose-first into the enemy blockades.

  
Clones don’t believe in luck, but what else could it have been than a lucky shot that struct Knight down.

  
From Knight’s perspective, it seemed to go in slow motion: The blast that rocked his ship, the fire from the wing tearing off, the ocean rushing up before his eyes.  
He unstrapped himself and reached for the eject button, but just as his hand touched it, he was surrounded by water.

  
Knight barely had time to take in a breath before the ship was flooded, and going down fast. He put all his weight against the cockpit doors, but in the water he was weaker, and the pressure kept him trapped. The ship was going down too fast. If Knight didn’t get out soon---

  
He’d go the way Slug did.

  
His heart beat faster than it ever had before. He banged against the cockpit door again and again, it started to creak and bounce, but it wasn’t opening enough to get it out. His lungs strained for air.

  
There was another blast that rocked the ship, and threw Knight back to the opposite wall of the cock pit. Then the door popped open, another hand pushing it all the way up, and then grabbing Knight’s arm.

  
Knight felt like his chest would explode. He was getting dizzy, he needed air now.

  
Knight’s rescuer held tight to his arm and started to swim back up. He was fast and strong, and Knight finally remembered he could swim too.

  
It wasn’t until Knight and his rescuer had broken the surface, coughing and gasping for sweet air, that Knight realized it was Eddi who had jumped in after him. There was no time for thanks, they were still in the middle of a battle. Eddi climbed back into his own ship and held a hand out to pull Knight in too.

  
Soon they were taking off again.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Dont forget to comment!


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